After four months adrift in the South Pacific in 1989, the survivors were in such relatively good health that at first their story was disbelieved. Though upside down and half-submerged, their boat was well made. Its captain, John Glennie, a shrewd old salt, and his three companions--including Nalepka, an Outward Bound guide and the sole American--had originally set out from New Zealand for Tonga, and after capsizing they made living quarters in a compartment in the hull the size of a double bed with 18 inches of head- room. Nalepka tells how they caught fish and rigged a rain-collecting contraption, but he focuses most on the changing relationships among the men as they coped with stress and were forced to become a team to survive. Glennie lost his macho authority, the tentative Phil Hoffman, a heart patient, grew surer, and a loving tenderness developed between Nalepka and Rick Hellreigel, a young man with a brain tumor. Aided by Callahan (Adrift), Nalepka tells an intriguing tale of personal victories claimed from disaster. Illustrations not seen by PW (Oct.)